When it's gone
by Not Just a Nerd
Summary: You don't know what you have until it's gone. But sometimes you do. Bonnie x Jeremy. One-shot.


**Disclaimer 1: I do not own The Vampire Diaries and its characters. Second disclaimer after the fic.**

**Warning: Potential spoilers**

* * *

**October 31****st****, 2013**

_Nothing in the world can quite soothe your troubles like a hot shower_, Jeremy had heard his father saying this quite a few times in the past. Right now, standing under the shower head, with the hot water running down his body, soothing every aching muscle that he has worn out from hours of working out, and calming down the rush of blood in his veins, he realizes just _how_ right his dad was. With his eyes closed and the world and its supernatural and non-supernatural troubles temporarily forgotten, he feels like he's in Paradise.

"You realize that I can see you, right?" his voice suddenly fills the empty room, a hint of amusement barely concealed in it, his eyes now wide open and staring right at the small curtained window.

Bonnie stops dead in her tracks. "Sorry, I... " _Shit_. She doesn't know what to say. She wasn't expecting him to sense her presence and open his eyes. _Damn it_. Running her hand through her tangled hair, she desperately searches for a believable enough excuse. "I just wanted to use the mirror. I'm stuck in the same clothes for eternity, can't blame a girl." She shrugs, crossing her arms defensively, hoping he buys it.

Of course he doesn't. He tilts his head to the side gives her a challenging smirk. "Since when can ghosts see their shadows in the mirror?"

She rolls her eyes, like he's still the annoying eight year old kid who wouldn't stop asking her questions about algebra while she did her geometry homework. "I'm not _any_ ghost. I'm a _witch_."

He smiles. "Well, if you ask me-"

"-I didn't ask you."

"-I think you look pretty. You always do." He says genuinely. His smile widens, as he turns off the shower, grabs a towel off his shelf to dry off his hair instead of covering himself, and steps out of the shower, walking in her direction.

"Oh, thanks." Her mind half-registers the compliment, all she can focus on is Jeremy's sudden boldness, his current state of undress, his proximity to her, and yet how they are on different sides of the spiritual plane…. And she suddenly remembers that she isn't a horny teen girl secretly staring at her ex-boyfriend in the shower anymore, she's _dead_. "I... I'm gonna go now."

* * *

**November 1****st****, 2013**

"Jeremy."

He recognizes that familiar voice the second he hears it, and he _desperately_ hopes he's just having another nightmare.

"Anna?" He finally gets the word out, like saying the word will instantly make him burst into flames or something, and he almost involuntarily looks around the room to see if Bonnie is there. He heaves a sigh of relief when he remembers she's still watching Elena and Caroline party or whatever, but he still freaks out as the guilt wraps him around its little finger. "_What the hell_ are you doing here?"

"I… don't know." Anna answers, confused. And the hope in her eyes kills him. "You were thinking about me."

Now it's his turn to be confused. "No. I was..." He flops down on his bed, hands on his forehead, eyes hazy and focused on the cold, harsh marble of the floor, suddenly feeling like his mind is a blank slate. It takes a lot of effort to get the words out. "I was thinking about how I cheated on Bonnie with you."

* * *

**November 16****th****, 2013**

"I just realized something." Jeremy randomly says in the middle of the night, sitting up in the couch.

"What?" Bonnie whines from the bed, burying her face further in the pillow that she can't even feel.

His eyes, fixed on her small frame in the darkness of his room, twinkle with mischief. "Now that you're dead, I can access all your stuff at your house."

While she appreciates how they are now cracking jokes to make peace with her death, since it's in the middle of the night when he needs to be soaking up all the sleep that he can get for the next day at school, even dead, she's still just as feisty. "What makes you think I didn't lock them with a spell?" she mumbles into his pillow.

Now he can't hide his grin anymore. "You locked your underwear drawer with a spell?"

She looks up at him in disbelief. "You really are a horny eighteen year old, you know that?" A part of her reminds her how _she's_ the one who spies on him in the shower while he's the one who voluntarily sleeps on the couch so that the dead ghost on the other side of the veil can sleep on his bed, but she ignores the voice, the same way she ignores the voices that chant like obsessed fan girls, "_Kiss him, kiss him, kiss him_."

"Can you blame me?", his words break her out of her trance, and she notices him staring at her with a glazed look in his eyes. "Just look at you." He breathes.

Her heart lends a beat to that punk rock band playing in some cafe somewhere at that moment. _Breathe, breathe, breathe. _Somehow she manages to smile calmly at him.

* * *

**November 27****th****, 2013**

"I do not want advice from you." Jeremy states firmly, brushing off Alaric's concerns with a laugh. "The only guy who can beat my luck at this dating thing is you."

Alaric laughs back, but he continues his "lecture" anyway. "You're a bundle of guilt right now, Jeremy." he places his hand on his back, and even though Jeremy cannot feel it, it soothes him some. "I want you to sort it out one by one and talk to her about it."

* * *

**December 5****th****, 2013**

"I owe you a proper apology." He finally manages to tell her.

She shakes her head, holding up a hand in front of her, palm out, like it will shield her from the words that she knows are coming. "It doesn't matter anymore... I'm dead."

"_I'm_ not", he says, taking a step towards her, his eyes soft as he stares at her, but his voice firm with conviction, "and to _me _it matters."

"Don't." She warns. Her eyes shoot daggers at him. And somehow it reminds him that's she's the descendant of _Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned,_ also known as Qetsiyah. She shakes her head again, now averting his gaze. "Don't dig up the past and ruin what we have now."

_Don't screw up again_. He heard her loud and clear. And he doesn't care. "So, what now? Continue with this flirting like we don't have a past? _Like I didn't cheat on you_?" he screams the last part, and she hisses at him.

"Stop, Jeremy, _stop_." She half-pleads, half- commands, backing away from him now. "What has gotten into you today? Isn't what we have enough for you?"

"What _do_ we have, exactly, Bonnie?" He demands. The harshness in his tone does little to hide the vulnerability in the back of his mind.

She notices it. But she has her own vulnerability hidden at the back of her mind too. She knows it's a risk asking this, but since they are here now, she does anyway. "What do you want us to have?"

"I want", he chokes on his words, "I want us to have a discussion like mature adults. I'm _tired_ of being that kid for _everyone_, Bonnie! I want to apologize to the woman I treated so wrong, the woman who gave her life so that I could have mine back."

"I didn't do it for you." She states matter of fact-ly, chin held up in a defensive way that does little to hide her blatant lie. "I did it for Elena."

He scoffs. He remembers seeing it in her eyes, seeing something shifting, something changing, right after he hugged her, back at the cave. "Like you brought back Alaric for her?" he counters.

"Stop, stop." She begs.

"Or Jenna?"

"Jeremy!" She holds her head in her hand, closing her eyes tightly trying to block out her reality.

"Or Jonathan."

"Enough, please."

"And mom and dad!"

"Fine!", suddenly, she breaks. She crosses the distance between them in a mad dash, and tries to bunch up the collar of his shirt in her fists. It angers her further when she can't feel it, and she pulls on her own hair instead. "I did it for myself, ok? I did it because I'm selfish. Don't you get it? You were _dead_. Dead, Jeremy, dead. When it's gone…. " she can't complete her sentence, overwhelmed by the jar of emotions that she just stuck her hand into. "_Nothing_ else mattered. Not you cheating, or lying to me, _nothing_. You don't realize what you have till it's gone and.." she looks him in the eyes, her gaze laced with the slightest hint of contemplation, tears streaming down her cheeks and chin now. She nods to herself. _No going back now_. "I love you."

Her confession shocks him. For a few moments he can only stare at the emotional train-wreck of the strongest girl he has ever seen. He wishes he could hold her tight, wipe away her tears, kiss her pain away, you know, regular boyfriend stuff. Instead, he holds her hands in his, even though they can't feel it. It calms her a little. She takes in deep breaths, trying to stop her sobbing.

When she recuperates somewhat, he places a hand on her cheeks. "Qetsiyah should learn from you. There she was, ripping the heart off the other woman's chest and cursing her man's ass with immortality on the other side, and here you are." He stares at her with wonder, and admiration, and respect. "All these years and I never knew you were so... I don't deserve you, Bon."

She tries to protest, but he places a finger on her lips and silences her. "_But. _I'm selfish too. And I love you too. So I'm keeping you."

Her heart fills with happiness at the words, even though she knows this love is doomed. She laughs. "So, what now? You'll paint our names in graffiti?"

He laughs back, mentally swearing to kick Matt for not keeping his secret. "Can I upgrade back to my bed first?"

She shrugs. "Depends."

He arches an eyebrow at her. "On?"

She grins. "I want the right side."

* * *

**December 20****th****, 2013**

"Elena, stop worrying about my grades! I can see ghosts, remember? I can make a living pretending to be psychic." Jeremy tells his sister over the phone as she pesters him about his lack of interest in building his own life and his interest in helping them with the supernatural instead.

"I'm not in the mood for jokes, Jer." Elena scolds in the best angry older sister voice that she can manage. "Wait, you haven't been doing drugs again, right? I mean, with Bonnie being..." She trails off, still incapable of bringing herself to say it.

"With Bonnie staring at me all the time," he finishes for her. "I _can't _do drugs. She yells at me even when I drink Damon's scotch."

"You steal from _Damon_?" Elena's jaw drops in horror. "Do you have _any_ idea what he'll do to you if he finds out?"

"Damon _lets_ me drink." Jeremy counters proudly. "He said I'm the annoying and slightly more handsome replacement of Alaric."

"You are." Bonnie comments, sitting on the couch next to him and over-hearing their conversation.

"Thanks, Bon." He retorts back loudly, instead of just mouthing the words, and realizes that a second too late.

"What did Bonnie say?" Elena asks curiously.

"Oh she's said a _lot_ of things. Mostly to Damon. Sadly he can't hear them."

All three of them laugh. It feels like normal times. And then Elena remembers she's supposed to be angry.

"I want you to get straight As, Jer."

* * *

**December 27****th****, 2013**

It's a lazy Friday evening. He's put on her favorite music at high volume. She's sitting in his room, listening. _So much for his social life_, she thinks to herself, wondering if she should ask him to go out, meet girls now, but knowing fully well how he will react to that.

"Hey, Bon", he asks, interrupting her thoughts. "What's your take on Romeo and Juliet?"

She shrugs, stumped at the randomness of his question. "Mixed feelings, really. I know it's epic love, but life is precious too." She says, thinking about everything she had planned for herself once upon a time, if only she was alive! How she would go to college, learn new things, come back, get a job, get married, _have little Gilbert kids_. She blushes at the thought.

"So you will say the same thing to me if I said I wanted to die?" He quizzes her.

"You've died twice, Jer. Isn't that enough?" She laughs.

He turns down the volume of his music player. "I don't know. Maybe third time's a charm?"

He stares at her silently, and after two minutes filled with the tense guitar chords serving as the perfect background music, she finally reads his mind.

"_Oh God, no. No. Absolutely not_." She states firmly, looking at him in pure horror. "_Are you out of your mind? I died so you could live_!"

"No. You brought me back to life so we could have a second chance." He corrects her. "But then you died. That changes everything."

"You are being an idiot." She lets him know, crossing her arms over her chest.

He shrugs. "Fine, I'm an idiot for love then. Like you were, for me."

She shakes her hand, not knowing how to counter that without being a complete hypocrite. "You're still young. You have your whole life ahead." She says instead.

"What's life without you, Bon?" He simply asks.

"But I _am_ with you, all the time. And I will be." she promises, taking his hand in hers.

He sighs in exasperation. "I want to be able to touch you."

_Wrong move. _She mentally scolds herself. "What if you regret it? What if it's just a phase?" she tries to reason.

"It's not." He says it with so much conviction that it doesn't leave any room for argument. "I know it's real, and _you_ know it too."

She shakes her head. "You are being irrational! This is not how normal people deal with death!"

"We are not normal people." He reminds her. "I'm a Hunter, you're a witch, the last time I checked."

"You're not dying, Jeremy! I will not have this!" she screams, fixing him with her deadliest glare to let him know she's serious.

He stands his ground, speaking in the calmest voice that he can manage. "This is my life, my choice. Please respect my choices."

"I can't." She says helplessly.

Seeing the pain in her eyes, he doesn't say anything else. _For now_.

* * *

**December 29****th****, 2013**

"So, have you thought about college yet?" Bonnie asks him that Sunday afternoon in the middle of helping him with his assignment which he has procrastinated till the very last minute _yet again_. She watches his hands move as he writes, the muscles in his arms putting on a delightful show for her eyes. She looks away to hide her blush. _Focus, Bonnie, focus._

"Nooooooo." He replies slowly, fully alarmed at where he knows this conversation is going. _Not again_.

"What about getting a job then?" she suggests, clearly worried about his lack of plans for the future.

He chuckles. "Nyah. I like Damon paying for me."

She chuckles back. "I like it too." She confesses. "But you should be doing something, shouldn't you? You should start thinking about your future, Jer."

"So this is why they say don't date an older girl." He mumbles under his breath, remembering the time when he was nine and got lost in the mall while with Jenna and Bonnie and Elena ganged up together and lectured him for a full hour on how he isn't supposed to let go of the adult's hands.

"What?" Her confusion is written all over her furrowed eyebrows as she tries to guess what he said.

"Nothing." He quickly brushes it off. "Let's just focus on the near future right now, ok? Elena is gonna kill me if I don't get a B in this."

* * *

**December 31****st****, 2013**

There's hope in the form of Silas, wanting to exchange his life with hers. And there's water to that hope in the name of Crazy Pants Amara.

And so they are back to square one, and he's back to his old plan.

"Look at Silas, wanting to die and spend eternity with his one true love. Why can't I do that?" he asks her while fixing a sandwich for himself- and another for Damon, who has graciously agreed to stay out of their way when Bonnie is around to give them some privacy, or in his words, so that he "_doesn't have to hear the lunatic talking to himself_."

"You're not Silas", she says immediately. "And I'm not letting you die, Jeremy."

"Why not?" he wants to argue that he's grown up enough to make this decision, but his voice sounds so whiny, it doesn't help. Instead, he tries another reason. "Technically, I _am_ dead. I died twice. _And, _if I die again, nobody can hurt me anymore."

"You're not a coward, you're not afraid of hurting." She points out.

"I'm afraid of never being able to touch you." He counters.

"I am too", she admits, her voice small and with a little less fire in it than that, "but I love you more than that."

"And I love you enough to die, so please respect that."

* * *

**Three months and thousand more such arguments later**

_"Dear Elena. _

_You know how they say you don't know what you have till it's gone? Well, I always knew what I had, and I still lost it. But now is my chance to get it back. _

_Please don't freak out. I'm not a kid anymore. I've given it a lot of thoughts. It's my life, my death. This is what I want._

_I know you'd do anything to be human again, to have a normal life, to grow old, die, be buried with the one you love. But it's Bonnie. I've known her forever. I love her. I__wanna__spend eternity with her. She's The One. _

_I know what you'll say, I've had that discussion with Bonnie a million times, but finally she understood. I hope you will too someday.__ I'm sorry, but not really. _

_Take good care of you. I know you will be ok. You've got Damon, and Stefan, and Caroline, and Matt. __I'll be around too, so don't go switching off your humanity on me again, okay?_

_And don't worry about me either. I've got Bonnie, and Alaric. __I'm happy, Elena, I'm truly happy._

_I'll miss you. I love you. :-*__"_

* * *

**Disclaimer 2: In no way does this fic encourage suicide. That's like, the stupidest thing ever. This is just a fic, don't get any ideas, please!**

**A/N: I'm new to this ship and obsessed with it. Hope you like it! I'm still trying to get the characters right. Reviews would be good! Have a great day!**


End file.
